Our series of weekly NASCAR driver interviews continues with Chris Buescher, a Sprint Cup Series rookie who is currently 31st in the point standings for Front Row Motorsports. Buescher, who finished 14th in the Brickyard 400, was the 2015 Xfinity Series champion.

Q: What is an errand or chore in your daily life people might be surprised to learn you do yourself?

A: I have to mow the grass weekly. That’s about a three-hour ordeal. We’ve got a couple acres to cut. I like doing lawn care stuff though. Well, I had the idea I’d like it, and then I realized you have to cut it every week or else. Now I’m almost over it.

Q: If you could do any race over again, which race would you choose?

A: Bristol last year in the Xfinity Series. I was leading the race and we were able to get ahead of Kyle Busch on several restarts at the end. We ran out of gas on a green-white-checkered. Knowing what I know now, I could have saved a little bit or got down on the flat to make sure we could have made it to the end. We had enough fuel to go to the end and drive back to the garage, but there’s so much banking at Bristol that I didn’t keep it in the (fuel) pickup box.

Q: The longest race of the year is 600 miles. How long of a race could you physically handle without a driver change?

A: You know, 600 miles was a long time. And that was a shorter 600-mile race (in terms of time). I’m going to say I couldn’t make it past 700 or 800 miles. That’s gotta be my limit. I mean, I’d have to go to the bathroom at that point.

Q: Let’s say president of NASCAR was an elected position voted on by the drivers — and you decided to run. What would one of your campaign promises be?

A: Well, campaign promises are all lies anyway, so you can come up with whatever you want.

Maybe I’d say no tests on an off-week or I’d promise to turn weekends into a one-day show and pack everything in. I mean, it doesn’t have to be truthful, right? (Laughs)

Q: At the start of this year, exactly 2,900 drivers had ever raced in the Sprint Cup Series. Where do you rank among those 2,900?

A: Ooh. We’ve had some good days and we’ve had some off days. But I bet we’re in the top 100 for the highlight reels, given our Talladega incident (when he barrel-rolled down the backstretch in May).

It’s pretty early in the season still and we’re trying to make a name for ourselves. We’ve had a couple good runs lately. But I don’t know the answer. It makes you think too hard. (Laughs)

Q: What do you think your reputation is — and is that reputation accurate?

A: I hope it’s that I’m respectful, that I race hard but I’m not out here to wreck people. I had to work on my own race cars a lot growing up, and I remember how much I hated fixing them. So I’m very aware of not tearing up equipment, and I really try to make sure we have a clean car at the end of the race.

Now, this year hasn’t been quite that simple. I’ve torn up more cars this year — just from bad luck — than I have in my entire stock car career. It’s kind of sad. So my reputation is probably not what I think it is at this point.

I didn’t realize that. So before this year, you didn’t have many big wrecks?

We’re four cars in this year. I remember one ARCA car that was wrecked and we needed a new front clip. Last year, we threw away two Xfinity cars — Darlington and Kansas — and we might have had to clip one or two others. But that’s pretty much it.

That’s crazy that you’ve had so few crashes that you can remember which cars got messed up.

I had never been to the infield care center before this year. Ever. In any series. And we’ve been, what, four times this year? It’s been rough.

Q: A famous chef wants you to invest in the new restaurant he’s opening, but he wants you to pick the cuisine. What type of food would your restaurant serve?

A: Breakfast. It would probably not be a big hit, but breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I like eggs, French toast, bacon. You know, the traditional stuff.

Q: What is the most daring thing you’ve done outside of racing?

A: I was pretty dumb on a dirt bike for a long period of time.

Did you ever get hurt?

Luckily, no. I got run over when I was real young and that’s kind of what ended my motocross career. My mom pulled the plug.

Wait, you got run over?

We were on little 50cc bikes, and we came over a hill. I got into the ruts of the big 250 bikes, and it literally hung the pegs on both sides — it was so deep. It slung me over the handlebars and rolled me a little bit.

Well, the next kid came over that hill and when he landed, I was laying out right there in front of him — and he just ran me right over.

What happened?

It just hurt. I didn’t break any bones or anything. I had chest guards and more pads than I knew what to do with when I was 7 years old. But it did not go over well with Mom.

Q: In a move to generate more excitement, NASCAR decides in an upcoming race it is going to require every driver to have a passenger in the car. You get to pick the passenger. Who do you choose?

A: That would be awesome. I’ll tell you what: If you were smart, you’d choose one of the other drivers so he couldn’t make any laps. Then you’d take one of your competitors out of the equation. Like I’d take one of the Rookie of the Year guys and say, “You’re my passenger, so you can’t finish the race!"

Q: How often do you talk inside the car without hitting the radio button?

A: I don’t talk very often with the radio button on, and I talk with it off even less. So probably almost never. I’m extremely quiet inside the car. I’m typically a quiet person anyway; even when everything gets wild and out of control, I’m pretty calm.

I’m not a very colorful personality on the radio. There are plenty of people in the garage area who are — and I’ve enjoyed listening to a lot of highlight reels — but you’re probably not going to hear me on Radioactive (on Fox Sports 1).

Q: Who will win the Sprint Cup in 2021?

A: Hopefully us. I hope so.

Q: I’ve been asking each driver to give me a question for the next interview. The last driver was Bubba Wallace, and he wanted to know where you would like to travel overseas that you haven’t visited yet.

A: I don’t think I’ve ever been overseas. I’m a homebody. We did a cruise in the Caribbean when I was real young, and we got off the boat and basically got back on the boat. My whole family is not real big on traveling.

I don’t really have much interest in going to Europe or anything like that. I’d like to go fishing in Canada, but that’s just over a border. Does that count? Can we go with that? I’m just not a big traveling person.

And do you have a question for the next interview? It’s with Ty Dillon.

Aug. 1: Chris Buescher wins the Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono Raceway. The race was delayed because of inclement weather Sunday and called on lap 132 of 160 Monday because of fog.
Brian Lawdermilk, Getty Images